Region | Egypt

Mubarak retrial adjourned to December 14

Cairo: The retrial of Egypt’s ousted president Hosni Mubarak, on charges of protester deaths and corruption, has been adjourned to next month, a court said on Monday.

Presiding judge Mahmoud Al Rashidi said after three closed sessions since Saturday that the next hearing would be held on December 14.

The court, which began hearing the case in May, ordered testimony from Hussain Tantawi, the chief of the military council that ruled Egypt for 17 months after an uprising forced Mubarak out of power in February 2011.

The court also summoned Sami Anan, an aide to Tantawi, to give his testimony. Both will be cross-examined behind closed doors for security reasons, said the judge.

The two ex-army generals served for long years under Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for nearly 30 years.

The court also ordered Hamdy Badeen, who served as chief of the military police during the anti-Mubarak revolt, to testify. Badeen, now a military attaché in China, failed to appear on Monday before the court to give his testimony.

There was no word from the court on whether Mubarak, 85, will be released from a military hospital where he has been staying under house arrest since late August under an emergency state that ended on Thursday.

In June last year, a court sentenced Mubarak to life in prison after finding him guilty of failing to prevent the killing of more than 800 protesters in the 2011 uprising.

However, the country’s top appeal court in January accepted Mubarak’s appeal and ordered his retrial. Mubarak’s two sons, Alaa and Jamal, stand the same retrial on charges of corruption and influence peddling.